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A HIV test, like sex, is best enjoyed with your partner

Stephanie Raison

by Stephanie Raison

02 Dec 05:40am

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Filed under: Africa, Aids, Disease, Health, Society

22 comments

When I told my Australian friends that I was moving to Kenya to work as an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development many of them told me not to have sex while I was here because of the country’s high HIV prevalence. Some 280 people are infected with HIV every day in Kenya.

Photo: Herald Sun

The theme for this year’s World AIDS Day is getting to zero, but getting to zero doesn’t mean zero sex.  Along with zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS related deaths it also means zero unprotected sex with someone whose HIV status you don’t know.

Knowing your HIV status is the first step in prevention; if you are negative then you can take measures to ensure that you stay negative and if you are positive then you can access treatment, care and support services.

HIV is no longer something to be scared of. I’ve met many Kenyans who have been living with HIV for more than 20 years. Some are married to HIV negative partners and have HIV negative children. What is to be feared, is not knowing your HIV status. 

However, it isn’t enough just to know your status. Since sex is not an individual act you also need to know the status of your partner. Some 44.1% of new infections in Kenya occur in heterosexual unions or regular heterosexual partnerships and another 20.3% through casual heterosexual sex (Kenya Modes of Transmission Study 2008).

If HIV testing and counselling is the biggest revolution in HIV prevention, then the biggest challenge is couples and getting our partners to come with us to a voluntary testing and counselling site. Partner testing is complicated because it goes beyond a simple medical test and evokes sentiments around trust and fidelity. 

In a country with a national campaign against mpango wa kando (sex or a relationship on the side) and where polygamy is a cultural norm in some communities it becomes a challenge to ask people to test together with all their sexual partners.

In Kenya approximately 1.4 million people are living with HIV and AIDS but the actual figure could be much higher because only 50% of Kenyans know their HIV status and an estimated 80% of Kenyans who are HIV positive don’t know that they are. 

It is therefore paramount to mobilise the community to increase uptake of testing and reduce stigma in order to eliminate new infections.

This World AIDS Day the Kenya National AIDS and STI Control Programme will launch a national couples testing initiative. For 21 days organisations like Liverpool VCT Care and Treatment (LVCT) will invite people to test together with their sexual partner. The campaign will use celebrity couples taking public HIV tests to encourage the wider community.

LVCT pioneered celebrity testing and after US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama were tested in Kisumu in 2006 there was a huge increase in the number of people being tested.  The CEO of Kenya’s Commercial Bank, Martin Oduor-Otieno and his wife, take public HIV tests every year. 

When the Australian High Commissioner to Kenya HE Mr Geoff Tooth tested at LVCT together with his wife it made the national newspaper.  My friends read the article and asked where they too could get tested.

So if you want to make a difference this World AIDS Day the question you should be asking as you read this, is do you know your correct HIV status and do you know the HIV status of your partner?  If not, go and get tested and start talking about it.

Unless more people get tested, know the status of their partners and use preventative methods then the rate of new infections will continue to be 280 and above, not zero.

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22 comments

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    • Erick says:

      05:21am | 02/12/11

      Here’s a relevant article:

      ‘Thirty years, 30 million deaths and 60 million infections after HIV appeared, medical researchers now have the tools to halt the deadly epidemic.

      ‘“We have the weapons to win the war against AIDS,” says Richard Marlink, M.D., Executive Director of the AIDS Initiative at the Harvard School of Public Health. “It is time to take what we have learned to turn the epidemic around and end AIDS.”’

      More details at the link.

      And let’s give credit where credit is due - the fight against AIDS in Africa was led by none other than the much-maligned George W Bush.

      ‘The President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR/Emergency Plan) was a commitment of $15 billion over five years (2003–2008) from United States President George W. Bush to fight the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. The program initially aimed to provide antiretroviral treatment (ART) to 2 million HIV-infected people in resource-limited settings, to prevent 7 million new infections, and to support care for 10 million people (the “2–7–10 goals”) by 2010. PEPFAR increased the number of Africans receiving ART from 50,000 at the start of the initiative in 2004 to at least 1.2 million in early 2008.[1][2] PEPFAR has been called the largest health initiative ever initiated by one country to address a disease. The budget presented by President Bush for the fiscal year 2008 included a request for $5.4 billion for PEPFAR.[3]

      ‘According to a 2009 study published in Annals of Internal Medicine,[8] the program had averted about 1.1 million deaths in Africa and reduced the death rate due to AIDS in the countries involved by 10%.’

      Reply

    • Nathan says:

      07:43am | 02/12/11

      well if that moron can get something done don’t see why the rest of the world can’t get there act together

    • MDMConnell says:

      08:01am | 02/12/11

      Yes, you can certainly bag GWB for many things, but he was very big on the fight against AIDS in Africa.

      Even left-wing celebrity pontificators like Bono gave Bush alot of credit for his African humanitarian policies.

    • Peter says:

      11:37am | 02/12/11

      Interesting Erick.  I’ve read your posts before about how all the medical research is biased towards women’s health.  But here we have AIDS, which for the western world is by far and away a men’s health issue.  And we’ve spent billions and billions on it.  How do you factor that in?

    • Erick says:

      12:02pm | 02/12/11

      @Peter - I’ve never said ALL the medical research is biased towards women’s health. I’ve simply stated the fact that expenditures on gender-related health problems tend to favour women.

      In Africa, AIDS affects both sexes equally, in massive numbers. In Western countries, only a small number are affected - but many of these are gay men. As anyone who has studied Political Correctness knows, gays are a special category, who are almost equal to women in value.

    • Mahhrat says:

      06:48am | 02/12/11

      Good article, good work Erick.

      Reply

    • NESLIHAN KUROSAWA says:

      08:24am | 02/12/11

      Hi Stephanie,

      Unfortunately, AIDS is not only an exclusive & existing health problem in Africa!! We might sort of have it under control in the Western Societies, where extra funding & awareness seem to be working!!  However, same could not be said about the Developing Nations in Asian countries such as India, China, Vietnam & Thailand and lastly the Old Soviet Union Block countries!!

      We all know it takes a long time for this disease to show up with any symptoms!!  For all we know the very young, poor & uneducated are most vulnerable for the most obvious reasons!!  They could be just carriers for long periods before finding out that they do actually have full blown AIDS. When it comes to this very serious & deadly disease, we have to look at it from a global point of view!!  Best regards to your editors.

      Reply

    • TheRaptured says:

      08:45am | 02/12/11

      Aid is really nothing more than an race based disease that was created by New World Order funded scientists back in the 1950’s, hybridising animal DNA with human. Some non african nations have aids problems, but notice who the medicine is being grossly denied to, the African and Asian nations. Global eugenic psychopaths, royal interbreeding families, bankers and politician’s owned by bankers who plan in 50 to 100 year blocks. This aids epidemic is not gods disease, but a designed disease funded by these illuminated ones psychopaths running the planet. This cancer disease, exist not by accident at all.

      Reply

    • old fart says:

      09:31am | 02/12/11

      What on earth are you smoking today?

    • Blind Freddy says:

      10:15am | 02/12/11

      @old fart

      I’m guessing whatever it is, he’s using his bible to roll it in.

    • gobsmack says:

      09:41am | 02/12/11

      “Partner testing is complicated because it goes beyond a simple medical test and evokes sentiments around trust and fidelity.”
      Exactly.  So I can’t see why you would head the article “HIV test .. is best enjoyed with your partner.”
      I’d like to see a nominally heterosexual man say to his wife “um darling, when I was in Sydney last year, I was a bit naughty and got a little carried away.  I think we should both get tested for HIV.  It should be an enjoyable experience.”

      Reply

    • marley says:

      10:27am | 02/12/11

      @gobsmack - well, in the case you describe, the nominally heterosexual idiot should get himself tested asap to ensure he doesn’t pass anything on to his wife.  And then be sure he uses a condom next time.

      But I think this article is more about new partnerships - you start with protected sex, then you want to move on to unprotected sex, but both of you get an HIV test first.  After all, you’re sleeping with each other, and with every person either of you has ever slept with. Once you’re in a genuine, long-term, monogamous relationship,  it’s different.

    • gobsmack says:

      11:27am | 02/12/11

      @marley
      Okay, I take your point about new partnerships.
      However, the author specifically mentions “fidelity” which seems to be only meaningful in the context of an established relationship.
      Certainly, anyone having unprotected sex outside an established relationship should be having a HIV test and, if they’re also having unprotected sex with their partner, need to fess up and ensure the partner has the test as well.
      I still wouldn’t use the word “enjoy” in this context.

    • Lot says:

      10:30am | 02/12/11

      Aids was caused by people having sex with monkeys.

      Gay marriage is the first step toward normalising this type of behaviour.

      Reply

    • TheRaptured says:

      11:08am | 02/12/11

      Unfortunately Aids was created by Rockefeller foundation funded eugenics French scientist’s in Africa in the 1950’s, crossing ape DNA with human DNA and injecting it into Africans, while telling the patients, it is a vaccine.

    • gobsmack says:

      11:21am | 02/12/11

      “Aids was caused by people having sex with monkeys.”

      You must be the offspring of that union.

    • St. Michael says:

      12:14pm | 02/12/11

      Um, Lot, you are aware Aids is carried in blood products, aren’t you?

      The current theory is that AIDS was passed into the human population by someone butchering infected monkey carcasses and thereby contracting it due to mingling of blood or ingestion.

      Seriously, dude.  Bestiality has nothing to do with homosexuality.  Your attitudes are out of the Old Testament, and about as outdated.

    • Lot says:

      12:55pm | 02/12/11

      Sex with monkeys did it
      Man on monkey sex.
      Ignore it at your peril and continue down that spiralling path to insanity.

    • Peter says:

      02:52pm | 02/12/11

      Interesting.  315 comments regarding an article about Gay Marriage.  19 comments regarding an article regarding HIV tests.  Don’t know what that means, but must mean something.

      Reply

    • neil says:

      07:51pm | 02/12/11

      TheRaptured

      And there was a second gunman on the grassy knowl, aliens crashed at Roswell and man never went to the moon.

      You are a nutter!

      Reply

    • jim morris says:

      10:28am | 03/12/11

      “HIV is no longer something to be scared of.” What a strange thing for a Youth Ambassador to say.

      Reply
 
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